LOS ANGELES - Kristaps Porzingis was back at practice Sunday afternoon, hopeful of being ready to take the court after missing Thursday’s latest loss with a thigh contusion.

While it might seem like a good time to err on the side of caution with the Knicks all but mathematically eliminated from the playoff chase, Porzingis wants to play. And it will provide a chance for him to show where he is at before an interested observer.

When the Knicks take on the Clippers on Monday night, one of the analysts in the nationally-televised game will be Derek Fisher, who was the first NBA coach for Porzingis, and a man who feels that he had the second-year Knicks big man on the path to stardom.

“I know what was going on,” Fisher, who left without comment when fired last February, told Bleacher Report in a story that ran in January. “I know day to day the work that was being done. I know what we deposited into Kristaps Porzingis that is coming out this year. He isn’t where he is now by himself. He deserves all the credit, but what we were helping him do for himself — that matters.”

Porzingis has seemed to stall in his progress at times this season and just last week he expressed some of the frustration, speaking of the confusion that has fallen over the team this season with his third and current coach, Jeff Hornacek, trying to implement his own ideas while Knicks’ president Phil Jackson overshadows him, pushing his system.

That was another point that Fisher, who will also see Jackson for the first time since being ousted, could empathize with.

“We both didn’t know exactly what we were doing,” Fisher said. “Being the head coach is not like playing. Being president is not like being the head coach.”

Fisher, now working as a television studio analyst for Lakers’ games, has something in common with players and coaches in New York, feeling that Jackson’s presence loomed over the franchise. But like Jeff Hornacek saw early this season, Jackson’s discussions with the team and coaches about strategy created confusion as to who was in charge.

"One of the challenges for all of us was we were in the basketball department under the umbrella of Phil Jackson and who he was and who he is and what he was able to do as coach and leader," Fisher said. "Then [asking me as a head coach in a sense not to create the same results, but take the same system or way of playing and try and teach these guys how to play it — and utilize it in similar ways as when he taught it — I think at times it was more challenging for our players to really understand, 'Who am I committing myself to? Who am I selling myself to? Who am I running through the brick wall for?’”